My son accidentally shot a gun in his friends home and it

Customer Question

My son accidentally shot a gun in his friends home and it went through the wall into the next apartment. What can happen to him?JA: In what state did this occur?Customer: IndianaJA: Have you talked to a laywer yet?Customer: NoJA: Anything else you want the lawyer to know before I connect you?Customer: No

He can be charged with Section 35-42-2-2 of the Indiana Penal Code. Here is statute, which involves conduct involving a substantial risk of injury to another.

As you can see, it is generally a misdemeanor, but when a firearm is involved it would elevate the charge to a level 5 felony. A level 5 felony can carry up to 6 years of prison time. So this is a particularly serious offense, made all the more difficult by the fact that your son confessed to the police.

If he is charged, he will need a lawyer, and he should say nothing further to the authorities if they want to question him again.

Your question was what could happen. What could happen is that he could still be charged with the section I have told you about. It only requires a very low standard of proof to charge someone with a crime. The prosecutor only needs probable cause, which is simply a reasonable belief that a crime may have been committed. Whether he can be convicted of a crime is a wholly different matter, as that requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. But is there enough evidence to get him charged if the prosecutor wishes to do so? Yes.

This may have been an accident. Arguably, however, it was reckless for your son to be handling someone else's gun inside an apartment in the first place.

Please understand I'm not saying he will be charged. I'm only saying it is still possible, depending upon what the prosecutor makes of the matter. And it's the answer to your question, which was "what can happen to him," even though it is the worst case scenario.

At the very least, however, even if he avoids any criminal liability, he would be civilly responsible for the damage to his friend's apartment and the apartment next door.

The police are going to take the information to the prosecutor who will decide whether he or she will wish to go forward and charge him for a reckless act. While the police will frequently arrest someone at the scene of a crime, they do not have to. The state actually has until the statute of limitations runs out on the charge in order to file criminal charges. For an Indiana felony that's 5 years.

So he's not out of the woods yet, and going with the odds, I suspect that the contact he will receive will tell him that he's being charged.